


Scrapbook

by HerrKirschbaum



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Drawing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hatred, Hope, Hope vs. Despair, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Memories, Post-Canon, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:31:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6746746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerrKirschbaum/pseuds/HerrKirschbaum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post chapter 82.</p>
<p>The titans have been defeated. Humanity is free. Society changes. Those who are struggeling the most with the fact they have lost their task are the members of the Survey Corps. Struggeling with the guilt of the surviving, they try to live their lives.<br/>During the cleaning of the Survey Corps headquarter, Levi finds a scrapbook in Erwin's office while taking out folders of long gone days.</p>
<p>A Thank-you-for-100-followers-on-tumblr-prompt after a wish of Simmi!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scrapbook

  1. **Scrapbook** : Write about finding a scrapbook and the memories it contains.



 

The price humanity had paid was high and how many had died during the last battle no one could say for certain. The wounds were deep as well as the memories of that never ending horror. When they closed their eyes, they could still see them. The flying rocks. The wounded, the fallen and the faces of the dying.

And still – in the end they had been able to reveal the secret of the titans and defeated them ultimately.

Humanity was free.

The walls that had once surrounded them were now nothing more than relicts of long gone days.

But those who had offered their hearts to humanity were those who needed the longest to accept the changing as if waking up from a long, long nightmare. And after the past months in which so many they had known and loved vanished into the abyss, the grief about their losses hit them, now, where everything had calmed down, even harder.

Not few had lost their minds over the achievement of what they had striven for so long.

The times were changing. And with them so were the tasks of the Survey Corps. They would travel and map this unknown world. They would report humanity about mountains, oceans, deserts and the everlasting ice.

There was no one who could withhold them. Not anymore.

Their time had finally come.

But still…

“Well, well, I take care of the archive then. Bring those documents down later, will you?”

It was Erwin’s office. Hange stood in the doorframe. By now she hadn’t fully recovered from her injuries yet her spirits were unbroken. Levi nodded. In contrary to her, he looked exhausted. He had aged over the happenings of the last battle. Over the feeling that the only one he loved had died. Over the fear to be the only one who had survived.

“Yes”, he said and she disappeared.

As the sounds of her steps slowly faded, an empty silence inherited the room. Levi felt as if he had been buried alive. This place was filled with memories he was desperate to forget in order to ease his pain.

He turned away from the door and stepped to the desk. His fingers gently touched the dark wooden surface. The whole room was a mess. The cabinets stood open. The desk’s drawers had been pulled out. Papers and documents had been spread over the surrounding furniture. They cleaned out the office. They archived the documents. They were of no use anymore. They titans were gone.

Levi randomly took some papers from the table and examined them, then placed them into a wooden box. He bit his inner lip and tried to ignore the feelings that kept rushing through his veins since the other day. Deep inside Levi could still see them. Hear them. Smell them.

The Beast Titan.

The rocks.

The screams of the youngsters.

The desperation in Erwin’s gaze.

The pain in Levi’s chest as he realized that there was no way out. Not for him. Not for Erwin. Not for anyone.

The taste of blood filled his mouth. He would have loved to save Erwin from all of this. But he couldn’t.

He began to pull out files from the drawer. From time to time he opened them and took a look inside. He recognized the plain and elegant handwriting of his superior, only to slam the file heavily into one of the surrounding boxes afterwards. He didn’t want to think of it. He didn’t want to remember.

He stood here while so many of them had died. And even though he felt guilty for being alive, he tried to pull himself together and go on. Because he was stubborn. Because when he stopped and listened to his heart, he could sense hatred. Even after their victory he couldn’t stop hating those titans who had taken everything away from them.

Their youth. Their hope. Their integrity. Those they loved.

He closed his eyes for a second. Then, with a progressing speed, he continued his work. As if in trance he pulled the files out of the drawer, one after another, barely noticing what he was doing until he held something in his hands that suddenly caught his interest. It was none of the usual folders.

It was a scrapbook.

Levi knew it too well. Sadness sneaked into his gaze. He opened it. Gently, his fingers slid over the yellowed pages. It was small, hardly the size of a quartered sheet of paper. Back then Erwin had used to carry it in the front pocket of his uniform jacket. He had written down flash of inspirations, or did sketches. He had always been a good drawer.

Levi’s eyes slid over the pencil strokes. There were sketches of their friends, of which so many were gone. He had long lost the ability to recall all of those faces. Seeing them now, all of a sudden, left him breathless. Faces of comrades who served before he had joined the Survey Corps and that had died before he had set one footstep into this place as well as others who he had considered friends. Some had been drawn only once. Some more often. Amongst them there was Moblit. Nanaba. Hanji. Mike. Petra. They aged over the pages as time had passed. And every drawing had a date written underneath. They looked so alive, their smiles filled with hope, it hurt.

The longer he went through the pages, the faster he flipped them. And as he had reached the last one, he looked into his very own eyes. He hesitated. The strokes were unsteady. The lines shaky. Levi sat on a chair, the arms crossed in front of his chest, the head lowered. Black hair fell into the sleeping face. After Erwin’s arm had been eaten, Levi had waked at his bed day and night.

He started to tremble. Once more he bit his inner lip, grabbing the pages with his right hand. Slender fingers crawled into the paper. He would tear them out. The memories of those days. And with them, the pain.

“What are you doing there?”

Levi whirled around. He was breathing heavily.

“Erwin”, was all he could say. The commander stood in the doorframe. Dark marks were all over his gently smiling face. If Levi hadn’t known better, he would have taken them for freckles.

“Shouldn’t you be… Hange said, the doctors wanted to see you.”

“They are already done.” Erwin stepped into the middle of the room. Doing so, he slipped his hands into his pockets, letting his gaze wander around.

He was healthy. In fact, he was even better than before. “And there’s not much that needs to be done here as well.” He stopped in front of his desk and thoughtfully touched its surface. “Who would have actually thought we would make it so far?”

“What’s that pathetic bullshit you’re saying?”, Levi could hear himself say in the usual voice, eliciting a cheerful laughter from Erwin. Baffled, Levi stared at. Seeing him smile had always been a rare sight.

“Well”, Erwin said before he turned around. He watched Levi for a while, then furrowed his brows. “What are you holding there?”

“Your old scrapbook”, Levi answered without looking at him. “I wanted to sort it out.”

Erwin took it from his hands and flipped it open. He went through the pages. An unnamed melancholy flew into his smile.

“Why did you want to do such kind of thing?”, he asked eventually and looked up. Their eyes met. Suddenly, his heart was about to spring out of his chest. Levi folded his arms in front of his chest, searching for words. As he spoke his voice equalled a whisper. “I can’t take this anymore, Erwin.”

The other nodded. For a long time, Erwin didn’t say anything. Then he closed the book.

“Levi”, he began. “We are not guilty only because we are still alive.” He looked at the book’s lining before he placed it inside his uniform jacket’s front pocket. “It took me long enough to realize this myself. But they died in order to enable us to succeed. The times in which we fought against the titans are over now, but new times have only just begun. All these sacrifices that have been made… they are worth nothing if we can’t live on. We have to live, Levi.”

Slowly Levi raised his head.

“Maybe”, he whispered bitterly and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. “But your drawings are everything that remains of them, Erwin. Everything. Humanity will have forgotten them before long. And even our memories will fade one day. And once our memories have vanished, they will disappear. I want to hold onto them, yet in the same time there is nothing I want more than just forget all of this. Humanity will live on, but we will never be free. We will always carry this burden with us. I feel like I paid with my shitty life as well.”

“That’s not wrong, though”, Erwin began reluctantly, “We won’t be free. That’s the price we had to pay to stay alive. But I think once we will stand in front of the ocean they will be with us. I can feel their presence in the depth of my heart. We will continue what they couldn’t finish.” He smiled. “I think they are proud of us, wherever they may be now.”

Levi nodded. In the end, he smiled despite himself.

“Yes, Erwin”, he said. “Maybe you are right.”


End file.
